Objetivos y funciones

Syria appears more complex as its ethnic composition is more fractionalized. According to the EPR dataset, the population is divided into the following politically relevant ethnic groups:

Alawi (11%), Sunni Arabs (57%), Christians (10%), Kurds (8%), and Druze (3%). This

41 equals an ethnic configuration of {0.11, 0.57, 0.1, 0.8, 0.3}. However, Syrian politics are not defined along ethnic lines alone; rather, it is played out along ethno-religious lines in order to maximize the profits of the ruling elite (Politicshome.com). The late president Hafiz al-Assad entered into political alliances with certain other minority groups in order to secure his dominant position by broadening his support base (Kaufman and Haklai 2008: 752). These policies led to a twofold division, creating an included coalition consisting of Alawi, Christians and Druze, while the remaining groups were excluded (PoliticsHome.com). This resulted in a twofold configuration, which, according to the EPR dataset, would equal the figures {0.24, 0.76}. These figures are supported by The CIA Word Factbook (CIA 2013 b), and illustrated by PoliticsHome (PoliticsHome.com):

Figure 4: Syria: Demographic divisions of religion and ethnicity

Source: PoliticsHome, available May 8, 2013 at;

http://www.politicshome.com/uk/article/26901/syria_is_a_much_much_bigger_deal_than_egypt_or_li bya.html

Taking account for the ethno-religious lines along which Syrian politics where defined, we may conclude with an N* value close to .9.

Referring to Cederman’s model, we may conclude that amongst the three remaining ethnic minority regimes in Middle East, Jordan, with an N* value of .7, is the least likely country to experience civil war. Looking at the UCDP/PRIO Armed Conflict Dataset, covering the period from 1946-2011, neither civil war nor armed conflict is registered in Jordan since 2007. Bahrain, scoring an N* value of .85, is also not registered in the dataset of armed conflict (Gleditsch et al. 2002). However, in April 2012, Al Jazeera reported over 80 deaths due to clashes between Bahraini security forces and civilian protesters (Al Jazeera 2012), a figure qualifying Bahrain for the next year’s version of the UCDP/PRIO dataset. Syria, who gained the highest N* value of .9, has also by far experienced the most violent conflict. The

42 UCDP/PRIO Armed Conflict Dataset has coded the conflict as an “armed conflict”, as

opposed to “civil war”, meaning less than 1000 battle related deaths in a given calendar year.

However, the figures are from 2011. By now, the conflict is believed to have caused nearly 70.000 deaths (CNN 2013).

43

6 Conclusion

This brief review shows that Cederman’s model actually may have predictive effect. And by such, we have an empirical test supporting the initial hypothesis, holding that ethnic minority regimes are more likely to produce violent conflicts, and, the narrower the ethnic support base of the regime, the greater is the likelihood of violent outbreaks when threats of transition or democratization arises. Hence, this insight suggests that the ethnic basis of a regime, in itself, is a variable that may cause violent conflicts. To policy makers and promoters of democracy this is relevant knowledge as they consider transition processes and possibilities for initiating measures to support democratization in a given country.

As argued in the foregoing, the risk of violent conflict is not merely dependent on whether or not the dominant ethnic group is a minority; rather, it depends on the relative demographic size of the included versus excluded groups of society. These findings should encourage peace builders to promote broader inclusion into the circles of power in regimes characterized by narrow inclusion. In this regard, the most desirable system of governance is democracy as its principle rests on equal rights and political opportunities for all citizens regardless of ethnic affiliations.

44

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